


lift off, love

by pageleaf



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: 5 Things, Established Relationship, M/M, Multi, POV Outsider, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship, Thick as Thieves Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 08:06:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pageleaf/pseuds/pageleaf
Summary: Five conversations Costis has post-Thick as Thieves.(Or: some things change, while others stay the same.)





	lift off, love

**Author's Note:**

> i loved this book, and loved the view of costis it gave us, but because he's my fave, i of course craved some resolution for him (especially re: ot3). that's basically what spawned this fic! anyway, costis/kamet, new otp
> 
> title is from "mirrorball" by elbow, both because one of the refrains is "everything has changed," and as a not-so-secret homage to my best girl plalligator, who i love (and who hasn't even read the book yet lol)
> 
> also thank you to prismaticvoid for the super-quick beta <33

I.

Irene had just awoken and bathed when there was a knock at the door.

"Is it Costis?" she asked, when Imenia opened the door.

Imenia nodded.

"Send him in," Irene said. She'd been waiting.

Costis stepped through the doorway, his frame oddly diminished, though on closer look she could see he was no smaller than before. His shoulders were hunched up, his arms drawn in, his hands held awkwardly, one in the other. She wondered if it was because he'd outgrown the confines of her bedchamber.

She folded her hands in her lap. "Why have you taken so long, Lieutenant?"

"I—I was in the infirmary," he said, still hovering half-in, half-out of the room. "I'm sorry."

The infirmary. "You are hurt?" Irene asked urgently.

"I had a scrape on my head that needed seeing to," Costis elaborated. "And a few bruises, from when I was—away. I'm fine now."

"Let me see," Irene said, making to steady herself on the arms of her chair so she could stand.

"No—" Costis said, rushing to her side. She stifled her smugness at finally getting him out of the doorway.

"Why are you here, Costis?" Irene asked. "Come to pay your respects? To give your condolences, maybe?" His eyes dropped to her abdomen and then flew back up to her face, stricken. She tilted her head. "Have you missed me?"

His breath exited him in a rush, and he collapsed to his knees like a puppet that had been let go. "Irene," he said, and the name was unexpected. He had changed, her lieutenant.

"Costis?"

He looked up at her. His face was more weathered than she remembered—from sun, she imagined, and snow in the mountains. He'd been gone a year, and in that time his hair had grown long and curly over his ears. She touched his cheek however, and found it smooth.

"I had a small beard," Costis said, leaning into the touch. His eyes closed. "I shaved this morning before coming."

"I would have liked to have seen it," Irene said with a laugh. He'd never been anything less than clean-shaven in her presence

Costis laughed too, and then his face twisted. "I missed you very much," he said, choked, finally answering her question, and she let him bow his head to hide his face.

Strong Costis. When he wasn't angry, he had a remarkable talent for repressing. Fear, loneliness rarely reached the forefront of his mind.

But when danger passed, it hit him all the stronger.

"There is so much I have missed," Costis said wetly to the floor, and oh, she had almost forgotten.

"Maybe it's better that you did," Irene said softly. "So you won't be able to grieve her."

Costis shook his head, and then wiped his face roughly with his sleeve. "I do," he said in a low voice. "I miss her anyway."

Irene folded forward over him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He buried his face in her chest and exhaled.

After a long moment, Irene pulled back and kissed him on the mouth, then on the forehead. "Will you stay?"

Costis hesitated. "I should go see some others—friends, mostly."

"I meant in Attolia."

He looked up at her, eyes wide. "I hadn't planned to leave."

He might have changed, but he was still as terrible a liar as ever, she noted wryly.

Costis shifted awkwardly, then amended: "My—the king mentioned that I might go back home to see my family for a little while." She raised her eyebrow at the correction but didn't ask. "My sister's wedding would have been two days ago."

 _And after?_ she didn't say, because she recognized the overwhelmed, skittish expression on his face. Better not to poke too hard at the bruise.

But when he turned to go, and he glanced out her window at the view of the wall and the city beyond, she recognized that expression, too. Blank, and a little perplexed, as if he expected to feel something he wasn't. It wasn't the look someone gave a beloved home, sorely missed.

"Have you spoken to your king?" Irene asked, and Costis paused with a hand on the door's handle.

"He hasn't yet sent for me," he said. "Besides: I wanted to see my queen first."

 

II.

Aris had been on wall duty when Legarus came running for him.

"What's wrong?" Aris asked, pulling out his watch. "Shift change isn't for another half hour."

"I came to take over early," Legarus said, bending over to catch his breath.

Aris frowned. "Why?"

"Costis was released from the infirmary an hour ago," Legarus said, and Aris almost dropped the watch in his haste to put it back in his pocket.

"Where is he?"

"He went to see the queen, but one of the men there said he was heading to the mess a few minutes ago," Legarus responded.

"I'm off, then!" Aris said cheerfully.

Costis was sitting at a table with several other guards when Aris found him, but not talking to any of them. Aris could see them glancing Costis's way, trying to figure out how to engage him, ask what he'd been up to. It was hard, though, when Costis was staring at his bowl of goat stew, half of it sitting uneaten.

"Don't let the cook see," Aris said as he slid onto the bench on Costis's right. Costis looked up at him startled. He must have been lost in thought.

"What?" Costis asked.

Aris grinned. "If you let the cook see you pushing your spoon around that bowl like you couldn't stomach another bite, the kitchens might get offended, right?"

Costis smiled. "I hear they stopped putting sand in the king's food. Maybe they're getting soft."

"Mm, if you ask me," Aris said, "it just means they need a new target."

Costis laughed. "Unfortunately, my appetite has not yet returned to me, so I may just have to risk it. I thought I was so hungry, too." He sighed, brow furrowing slightly. Poor Costis, cursed with such an honest face, revealing his every thought. Aris was sure he didn't want the world knowing how difficult he was finding it to adjust back to Attolian life, but he couldn't hide it.

"How on earth did you survive the journey, with your talent for lying?" Aris asked, incredulous.

Costis snorted. "Kamet did most of the talking."

He sounded exasperated, fond. Nostalgic.

Aris pulled Costis's bowl toward him and got one spoonful to his mouth before Costis noticed and squawked. "What, you didn't want it, right?"

Costis made a face at him and then rested his chin on his hand with a sigh.

"Want to talk about it?" Aris asked soberly. Costis looked contemplative for a moment before shaking his head.

"Not really," he said. "It's more complicated than it has any right to be. But," he added, brightening up, "I wanted to tell you about the city—Ianna-Ir, it was amazing. The infrastructure there is incredible, and the _theaters_..." And with that he was off, his expressions vibrant with excitement. Slowly, the rest of their table companions tuned in, quieting down to listen to Costis talk about the good things in the Mede Empire, waving his hands around to illustrate particularly important points. It was something most of them had never had the chance to hear about, and he told his stories masterfully. Aris wondered if he'd always had that skill, or if it was yet another thing he'd developed while he was away.

He shrugged internally, spooned another piece of goat into his mouth, and settled in.

 

III.

Teleus was reviewing the king's scheduled appearances for the week—being captain involved more paperwork than they'd ever told him—when he looked up to see Costis, fist raised to knock at the open door.

"Come in," Teleus said. He gestured to the only other chair in his office, and Costis sat.

"Hello, sir," he said awkwardly.

"Welcome back, Costis," Teleus said, dry. "How was your trip?"

Costis's wooden composure cracked at that, and he smiled. "Very eventful, sir. Productive. But I think I will enjoy some rest."

Teleus felt alarm prick his nerves. "You're not..."

Costis blinked. "Sir?"

"Leaving the Guard?"

Costis's eyes widened, and he sat bolt upright in his seat. "No, no, captain, not at all, I meant...temporarily. I came to ask you for permission to go home to the Gede Valley to visit my family."

Ah. That he could handle. "How long?"

"A few weeks at most."

"Have you asked the king?"

"It was his idea," Costis said.

Teleus frowned. "Then why ask my permission?"

Costis looked at him, puzzled. "You're still my captain."

Such a simple statement of fact shouldn't have made Teleus feel warm, but it did. Perhaps he was growing soft.

"Permission granted," Teleus said, and then let a slight smile grace his face. "You deserve the rest."

Costis's forehead creased, lips pursing slightly—an odd expression, as if he wanted to protest. Just as quickly, however, his face smoothed over. "Thank you, sir," he said, and left.

Teleus tried not to hope for guards' well-beings, because in their line of work, with assassination attempts and wars around every corner, it did no one any good.

Still. He hoped Costis could win himself a little peace. He'd earned it.

 

IV.

Costis woke up in the middle of the night. For a moment he was sure, heart in his mouth, that it was the king. After a frantic moment examining the dark corners of his room, however, he was forced to admit that it was nothing, nothing at all. That he just had trouble sleeping after such a long time away from his bed.

Even before he left, however, he'd spent a month where he rarely slept in his own bed at all. Only a month, but it was enough to get him used to it. It hadn't felt right, however, to crawl into the queen's bed when he had yet to say two words to her husband.

He wasn't sure why Eugenides was ignoring him. He wished he knew. Costis didn't think he'd done anything to make him angry, and even so, Eugenides didn't often ignore the sources of his anger.

He did, however, tend to avoid the things that scared him.

Costis sat up and swung his legs out of bed with a quiet groan. He was in more pain than he'd let on that morning to Irene, his body stiff and aching. He also had a nasty bump on the back of his head that was responsible for most of the time he had spent in the infirmary—they'd needed to make sure he wasn't damaging his brain every time he moved around. Still, he'd escaped the journey with much less injury than he'd expected, especially after tangling with a lioness and falling into a well.

It would be a shame, to survive all that, and not even be able to work up the courage to see his king, who he knew loved him.

He stood up, resolute.

The younger of the two guards at the entrance to the dormitory was nearly falling asleep at his post, but jolted awake as soon as he heard Costis coming. He stammered out an apology but Costis saw the watchful eye his companion had had on him the whole time and let it slide with a wave of his hand. He didn't recognize either of them. Had he really been gone so long?

"Where are you going, sir?" the older guard—who still couldn't be more than seventeen—asked, concerned.

Costis smiled. "Out for a stroll," he said. "Couldn't sleep." He made a face, and let them think it was nightmares. They nodded sympathetically, and he left them to their duties.

By the position of the moon, it hadn't been long since he went to bed. The night air was cool and soothing on his face; he hadn't realized how stifling the familiar dormitory was until now. Costis made his way over to the walking path and started off aimlessly, as if he didn't know exactly where he was going. Maybe if he pretended he didn't, he could trick his body into not being nervous.

"No such luck," he whispered to himself wryly, as his heart fluttered wildly beneath his ribs.

The guard at the side entrance to the palace let him in without Costis even needing to ask. He was older than the two in the dormitory, but Costis didn't think he recognized him, either. Was Costis growing forgetful, or was he just that infamous, that even strange guards knew him by sight?

"Just checking on the king's guards before going back to sleep," Costis said by way of explanation, and the guard nodded. It was an excuse Costis had used often.

"Even a year wasn't long enough to kill the habit?" the guard said with a smile, and Costis smiled faintly back.

The palace was eerily quiet when he entered, even the normal ambient noises—birds, creaking doors, whispers of the servants who stayed up late—seemed abnormally hushed. To Costis, it felt as if the entire world were waiting in fraught anticipation.

 _How vain_ , he thought, laughing at himself. _Kamet must have had quite the influence on me_.

Kamet. Every time he thought of his friend, in the same palace as him yet still seeming so far away, his stomach twisted with a confused tangle of emotion. He liked him. He missed him. He was angry at him, for lying, but he didn't—he didn't think Kamet had been lying about everything. Kamet wasn't Eugenides; he wasn't that good at deception. Costis was sure that the friendship they'd built wasn't false.

But he was equally sure that Kamet couldn't stay, here in Attolia. He wouldn't go back to the Empire, that much was certain. Costis had seen Kamet cling to his small taste of freedom, even if Kamet himself still thought he didn't want it. But in Attolia, Kamet wasn't safe, with the Mede knowing exactly where he and the dangerous information he carried with him were. It would be all too easy for a servant of the ambassador to slip into his rooms and poison his water, or slide a knife between his ribs. Kamet couldn't defend himself—by his own words, he had never even looked too long at a butterknife.

So Kamet would leave, probably sooner than later. Did that mean Costis should, or shouldn't reconcile with him? It would probably give Kamet closure, to know that Costis had forgiven him. But for Costis, he was afraid it would hurt more than it healed, because he wanted—he wanted—

Oh, he was at the king's chambers. He turned the handle and pushed the door to the guardroom open.

"Costis?" one of Aris's men—he was new, too, everyone was new, and unfamiliar, and they all knew him by name—asked, standing up straight.

"I'd like to look in on him, if that's all right?" Costis asked, clearing his throat.

The guard looked at him, puzzled. "Of course," he said. "You are his—"

"Thank you," Costis said, cutting him off. He didn't know why. The title should have filled him with pride, as it had once: the King's Own Guard.

He entered the king's bedchamber, knowing without looking what he would find. Sure enough, the bed was empty, the sheets barely disturbed. The furniture had been moved around slightly since he was last here, and Costis felt a sharp ache form in his chest.

It built as he felt with his clumsy fingers for the trick panel in the woodwork. He used to be able to do this without looking, but this time he tried three panels before he finally got it right. The hidden door came loose, and Costis pulled it open. He entered the hidden passage, closing the door behind him. It was pitch dark, and Costis was relieved when muscle memory took over, proving that at least he remembered this much.

The ache returned though when he reached the other side, pushing the door open gently.

"Hush," said a low voice, and Costis exited the passage to see the king standing before him, half-lit by moonlight. "Irene is sleeping."

Costis blinked, hard. "I should hit you," he said hoarsely.

Eugenides smiled crookedly at him, grabbing Costis's hand and bringing it to his own face. "So do it," he said. "You've done it before."

Costis made a sharp noise in the back of his throat and kissed him. His hands grasped at Eugenides's shoulders, his arms, trying to gain purchase to bring him closer. Eugenides stood on tiptoe so he could deepen the kiss, and Costis brought both hands to the curve of his jaw, cradling Eugenides's face in his hands.

Unbidden, the memory of his hands on Kamet's throat flared sharp in his mind, and Costis tore himself away, stumbling back.

Eugenides was looking at him, knowingly. "Kamet," he said, not a hint of question in it.

Costis faltered. "He can't stay in Attolia," he blurted without thinking.

"I know," Eugenides said.

"The Mede know he's here. They could—"

"I _know_." The king huffed, exasperated. "I'm not a fool, Costis, except for when it comes to present company. I have a plan."

"You'll send him away," Costis said. He had expected this, but the idea still hurt.

"Is that all you came for?" the king asked.

Costis shook his head. "I—"

The king looked at him keenly. "You want to go with him."

Startled, Costis thought back on the past few days, on the unsettling feeling his home had been giving him, strange and huge, but also stifling in its familiar routine. He'd been itching to leave, but had dismissed it as residual stress from his time with Kamet. He'd never thought of it as an option.

"I don't want to quit the Guard," Costis said anxiously, the words tumbling from his heart. "I don't want to leave forever. I want to be able to come back, I want to be able to—"

He looked at Eugenides, helpless, then at the bed, where Irene still slept soundly.

"Costis," Eugenides said, raw. "You could leave for twenty years, and when you came back, we would still want you."

"Oh," Costis said, and then " _Oh_ ," again, his voice cracking.

"Come to bed, will you?" Eugenides asked, and the fact that he was asking sincerely, as if he had a doubt, was what made tears prick at the corners of Costis's eyes. He really was going to hit Eugenides again, one of these days.

The bed was just as soft, just as comfortable, as Costis remembered. He fit as easily between the solid warmth of Irene on his left and Eugenides on his right as he remembered, too. When he closed his eyes, the night could have been one from a year ago, or from ten years in the future.

Irene muttered in her sleep and threw an arm over Costis's waist, and he turned into the curve of her body gratefully. Eugenides pressed himself up against his back and tucked Costis's legs between his own, trapping him lovingly.

"Sleep, love," Eugenides said. "We'll figure it out."

Costis was sure they would. None of them were very good with emotions, but they knew each other better than anyone else.

And Eugenides was nothing if not good with plans.

 

V.

"You seem sad," Kamet remarked, as casually as he could.

"Not sad, really," Costis said, leaning his head back against the wall of their cabin. "More bittersweet."

"Homesick already?" Kamet said snidely. "You didn't have to come if you didn't want to."

Costis rolled his eyes. "Do you honestly think I'd be here if I didn't want to be?"

Kamet blinked, unsure whether to be pleased at the words or indignant at the tone. "You might if your king told you to." Which he had, Kamet remembered.

"He didn't," Costis said smugly. "I asked."

"You— _what_?" Kamet said loudly. "But you said—"

Costis's lips curled in a smile. "I lied," Costis said. His smile grew wider, and Kamet hastily averted his gaze, cheeks growing warm.

"Oh," he said. "Were you so tired of Attolia, that even a temple in Roa seemed like paradise?"

Costis sighed. "You're impossible. No," he said, "I will miss my country, though I plan to be back. That isn't why it's bittersweet, though."

"No?" Kamet looked back, interested despite himself. "A girl, perhaps?"

Costis laughed, deep and musical. "A woman," he said. "A queen, and a king."

Oh. _Oh_. "So," Kamet said, the taste of disappointment bitter in his throat. He curled his hands against the hard edge of the chair he was seated on. "So, you were that kind of favorite."

"So, so, so," Costis said, and tipped his head back again.

"And yet," Kamet pressed, cursing himself the whole while, "you are here, with me."

"A man can be a favorite to many," Costis said, and lay down on the bed he had been sitting on.

"Costis," Kamet said, breathless, mouth dry. "Costis, what does that mean?"

Costis rolled over away from him.

"Oh, gods damn you," Kamet hissed, but he smiled despite himself when he saw Costis's shoulders shake with laughter again.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can find me on tumblr as pageleaf, or on twitter as @peakcaps :)


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